Bell mechanism for toy telephone



Nov. 19,1968 RHOME 3,411,478

BELL MECHANISM FOR TOY TELEPHONE Filed May 12, 1966 INVENTOK JESSE P.RHOME l I ATTORNEYS United States Patent 01 hee 3,411,478 Patented Nov.19, 1968 3,411,478 BELL MECHANISM FOR TOY TELEPHONE Jesse P. Rhome,Lorain, Ohio, assignor to Masco Corporation, Detroit, Mich., acorporation of Michigan Filed May 12, 1966, Ser. No. 549,635 2 Claims.(Cl. 116-160) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A bell ringing mechanism for atoy telephone having a reciprocable actuator plate engageable with arotary cam plate through a plurality of cams to rotate the cam plate andring a bell when one of a number of push buttons on the actuator plateis depressed.

This invention relates to a bell mechanism for use in a toy and hasparticular reference to a manually actuated toy telephone bell mechanismfor realistically reproducing the ringing sound of a telephone.

The mechanism is operated by depressing an actuator plate whichsimulates the push buttons on modern telephones to ring a bell. When theplate is released the bell continues ringing until the actuator plate isreturned to its normal position. The invention produces a ringing soundquite similar to that of an actual telephone. The bell ringing mechanismassures that the duration of the ringing sound produced with eachdepression of the plate is approximately equal to the duration of thatof a conventional telephone. Thus the ringing produced by the inventionis in sound, quality and duration like that of a real telephone so as tomarkedly increase the reality of a toy telephone.

The principal object of the invention is to provide a new and improvedtoy bell mechanism.

A further object of the invention is to provide an improved bellmechanism for a toy telephone.

Another object of the invention is to provide a mechanical toy telephonebell mechanism which produces a ring ing sound highly similar to that ofa conventional telephone.

Other objects and features of the invention will become apparent as thedescription proceeds, especially when taken in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings, illustrating a preferred embodiment of theinvention, wherein:

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a toy telephone with a bell mechanismaccording to the invention;

FIGURE 2 is a sectional view of the bell mechanism as taken along line2-2 of FIGURE 3;

FIGURE 3 is a sectional view of the bell mechanism as taken along line3-3 of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4 is a sectional view taken along line 4-4 of FIGURE 3;

FIGURE 5 is a perspective view of an actuator control plate according tothe invention; and

FIGURE 6 is a sectional view taken along line 6-6 of FIGURE 4.

As illustrated in the drawings, a toy telephone may include a housing 10and receiver 12. A bell mechanism 14 is mounted on a chassis 16 which issecured within housing 10 by screws 18, 20", 22 and 24 which engagemounting holes 26, 28, 30 and 32 respectively in the chassis 16. Withthe bell mechanism mounted within housing 10, numbered buttons 34 ofactuator plate 36 project through openings 38 in the front panel ofhousing 10.

As shown in FIGURES 5 and 6, the underside of the plate 36 is providedat its opposite ends with cams 40 and 42. The cam surfaces 43 of cams 42are sloped oppositely to the direction of slope of the correspondingsurfaces of cams 40. A cam plate 44 is pivotally secured on chassis 16by means of pin 46 and is provided with cam surfaces 48 located at oneend of plate 44 and cam surfaces 50 located at the other end of plate44. As illustrated best in FIGURES 4 and 6, the sloped cam surfaces 43of cams 42 engage the cam surfaces 48 on cam plate 44 and the camsurfaces 43 of cams 40 engage the cam surfaces 50 so that when the plate36 is depressed, the cam plate 44 is rotated in a counterclockwisedirection around pin 46. The cams 40 and 42 and surfaces 48 and 50 aresymmetrically located with regard to the pin 46 so that the cam plate 44is smoothly rotatedwhen the plate 36 is depressed.

A pin 52 projects downwardly from cam plate 44 and extends through aslot 54 in the chassis 16 and is confined within groove 56 in gearsegment 58. The gear 58 is pivoted to the chassis 16 on post 60 andcarries teeth 62 which engage the teeth of pinion gear 64 which isrotatably mounted on chassis 16 by pin 65. A striker mechanism includinga rotor 66 having eccentric weights 68 rotatably secured to the outerends thereof is rotatable with pinion gear 64.

Spring stop 70 carried by cam plate 44 extends through slot 72 in thechassis 16 and provides a stop for one arm of the spring 74 which iswound around post 60'. The other end of the coil spring 74 is heldagainst fixed post 76 so that the spring biases the cam plate 44 towardthe position as illustrated in FIGURE 4 to raise plate 36 to itsextended position through engagement of the cam surfaces previouslydescribed. Pin 76 also forms a stop to prevent counterclockwise rotationof gear 58 past the position shown in FIGURE 2 to assure that the teeth62 are always engaged with gear 64.

A bell 78 is mounted coaxially with rotor 66 on a post 79 secured to asupport bracket 80 of chassis 16. The bell side walls are bent inwardlyat regular intervals to form striker ridges 82 spaced around the innercircumference of the bell. When the mechanism is operated so as torotate rotor 66, the eccentric weights 68 carried at the ends thereofare thrown outwardlyby centrifugal force and hit the ridges 82 toproduce a ringing sound similar to that of a conventional telephone.

The top telephone bell mechanism is operated by pressing down upon anyone of the numbered buttons 34 so as to move plate 36 toward the carnlplate 44. With the inward motion of plate 36- the surfaces 43 of earns40 and 42 will ride along cam surfaces 48 and 50 and rotate the camplate in a counterclockwise direction so that pin 52 will engage groove56 and rotatejgear 58 about pin 60 in the same direction as plate 44.1}.

Since the radial distance between pins 52 and 60 is less than thatbetween pins 52 and 46, the gear 58 will be rotated through a. greaterangle than will plate 44. With the rotation of gear 58 produced bymovement of the actuator plate 36 gear 64 is drivent through severalrotations due to its smaller diameter than that of the drive gear 58. Itwill therefore be seen that when one of the buttons 34 is fullydepressed, the rotor 66 is revolved several times and the eccentricstriker weights 68 will be brought into contact with the striker ridges82 to produce the desired ringing sound. The inertia of the drive systemand particularly that of the rotor 66 and weights 68 prevents a childfrom depressing plate 58 rotates rotor 66 in the opposite direction pastthe striker ridges 82 to continue ringing the bell.

With the mechanism described, the plate 36 need be depressed only aslight distance to produce the desired ringing of the bell, and thisaction closely imitates the operation of a push button telephone. Byusing an actuator plate with four cam elements located adjacent thecorners thereof, it is posible to operate the mechanism by depressingany one of the ten buttons 34 on the plate so that the entire plate ismoved inwardly and does not skew or jam against the housing 10 or camplate 44. WhileI have illustrated and described a preferred cmbodimentof my invention, it is understood that this is capable of modification,and I therefore do not wish to be limited to the precise details setforth but desire to avail myself of such changes and alterations as fallwithin the purview of the following claims.

What I claim in my invention is:

1'. A bell ringing mechanism comprising a support, a bell carried bysaid support, a bell striker rotatably mounted on said support adjacentsaid bell, a cam plate rotatably mounted on said support and having aplurality of cam surfaces spaced around its periphery, an actuatormember disposed in spaced and opposed relation to said cam plate andmovable toward and away from said cam plate, said actuator member havinga plurality of cam members thereon projecting toward said cam plate andengageable with the resting upon said cam surfaces for supporting saidactuator member in said relation to said cam plate, said actuator memberbeing manually depressible toward cam plate for effecting engagement ofsaid cam members with said cam surfaces to rotate said cam plate, drivemeans connecting said cam plate to said striker whereby rotation of saidcam plate rotates said striker to ring said bell, and a spring biasingsaid cam plate against said rotation so that upon release of saidactuator member said spring rotates said cam plate and said striker inthe opposite direction to continue ringing said bell and to effectreturn movement of said actuator member.

2. A bell ringing mechanism as in claim 1 wherein said drive meanscomprises a drive gear pivotally carried by said support, a driveconnection between said drive gear and said cam plate comprising a pincarried by either said drive gear or said cam plate and a slot in theother of said drive gear or cam plate, said pin extending into saidslot, and a driven gear on said striker meshed with said drive gear.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 470,025 3/1892 Wells 116l60519,828 5/1894 Adams 116160 547,091 10/1895 Snyder 11616O 576,257 2/1897Cole et al. 116-158 XR 1,586,504 5/1926 Allen 46-33 1,778,557 10/1930Hill 46--33 2,533,327 12/1950 Richard et a1 4633 LOUIS J. CAPOZI,Primary Examiner.

